Verizon to Offer iPhone With $30 Unlimited Data Plan

[MacRumors]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon will in fact be offering an unlimited data plan for the iPhone when the device goes on sale next month, pricing the offering at $30 per month on top of customers' calling plans.

It's official: Verizon is going to offer iPhone buyers a $30 unlimited data plan. The carrier's heir apparent and chief operating officer, Lowell McAdam, told us the news ahead of the company’s meeting with investors.

"I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot," he said. Not offering an unlimited plan would put up a barrier for customers who might otherwise switch from AT&T, he said.

The data plan offering may not be unique to the iPhone, however, as Engadget reports that the company is doing away with its low-end 150 MB data plan priced at $15 per month for 3G smartphone users, leaving the $29.99 unlimited plan as the only option. Verizon had just introduced the low-end plan in late October.

AT&T had offered a $30 unlimited data plan for iPhone customers, but switched to tiered pricing with the iPhone 4 announcement in June 2010, moving to a 200 MB plan priced at $15 per month and a 2 GB plan at $25 per month with no unlimited option available. Existing customers on the unlimited plan at the time of transition were grandfathered in and can continue on that plan, but new customers, as well as existing customers who have already switched to limited plans, can no longer sign up for unlimited data plans on AT&T.

Article Link: Verizon to Offer iPhone With $30 Unlimited Data Plan

 

[miles01110]

For now, anyway.

 

[GeekLawyer]

For now, anyway.

Exactly right. But until then, the pressure is on AT&T.

 

[contractcooker]

So is unlimited actually unlimited or does this mean 5GB?

 

[frozen220]

WiFi hotspot

Will having access to the WiFi hotspot be extra???? Or will the $30 unlimited plan cover it?

 

[WiiDSmoker]

So is unlimited actually unlimited or does this mean 5GB?

If anything says it's unlimited it's 100% limitless. There is no limit.

 

[JohnnyLemonhead]

Totally worthless deal for 99.99% of the public unless it has tethering included free of charge which would likely prompt me to sign up.

 

[q64ceo]

For now, anyway.

Doubt that. AT&T will have to come up with keeping its iPhone users happy. Watch and see that unlimited data plan return. If and when that happens, Verizon would be complete idiots to business if they eventually cap it.

 

[rjstanford]

Tethering

If this includes tethering/hotspot, its a very compelling offer. Although if this forces ATT to offer tethering at the same price (I currently have the unlimited plan), I'd consider it an even bigger win

 

[Consultant]

Copying the 2008 iPhone! Coming soon: Verizon network congested.

 

[Mr. Chewbacca]

Most of us iPhone 4 users are tied down in a contract so it doesn't matter much yet... After we are free to leave the competition will heat up a bit

 

[LanPhantom]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have to 2gb plan and I have connections to all AT&T hotshots. It just automaticlly connects.

 

[Consultant]

So is unlimited actually unlimited or does this mean 5GB?

Some carriers throttle after 5GB.

 

[Mr. Chewbacca]

If they did allow wifi that would be crazy! How could they keep up with the usage?

 

[benfica88]

If anything says it's unlimited it's 100% limitless. There is no limit.

Verizon's idea of unlimited usually has a 5GB cap...trust me.

 

[DiamondMac]

What they are doing is brilliant if they keep it in place

I, and everyone I know, will be switching the minute our current contracts are up within months to Verizon DUE to this and I suspect many others will as well

 

[jealousguy86]

i'm looking forward to getting the iphone 5 in june/july on verizon.

 

[contractcooker]

If anything says it's unlimited it's 100% limitless. There is no limit.

I hope this is true but t-mobile and AT&T have in the past advertised "unlimited" data when it was actually 5GB. so it's confusing (at least to me) -- I would like to find out for sure if this is actually truly unlimited, if so it would be a major reason to consider the iPhone. If you jailbreak it and add tethering (or even pay for tethering) it would be pretty awesome.

 

[j-a-x]

Go Verizon! This is great. Competition is just what the iPhone needs!

 

[WiiDSmoker]

I hope this is true but t-mobile and AT&T have in the past advertised "unlimited" data when it was actually 5GB. so it's confusing (at least to me) -- I would like to find out for sure if this is actually truly unlimited, if so it would be a major reason to consider the iPhone. If you jailbreak it and add tethering (or even pay for tethering) it would be pretty awesome.

AT&T does not have a limit. I and many others are using 20 GB+ a month.

 

[AbSoluTc]

Most of us iPhone 4 users are tied down in a contract so it doesn't matter much yet... After we are free to leave the competition will heat up a bit

You're not tied to anything. You can break the contract any time you wish. Just most people are too cheap and don't want to fork over the termination fee. For some reason, they think it's more expensive to do so than pay for something they really don't want for the next 2 years (or whatever time is left).

 

[durvivor]

I think WSJ use of the word "Its Official" is pretty poor in this situation.

- What is the "Official" price of the new wifi-hotspot functionality?
- Why did they need to take 10 days to say... "Same data plan as we already had."

 

[scelzifan]

I think this is great. I honestly did not think it would happen but I think its great that it did. But my only question is, why is their no pricing on the hotspot feature? You know it's not free, so are we supposed to assume it's an additional 20 dollars? I just don't understand why they kept that under wraps for so many days and still have not released all the details and we are down to a week until ordering time. Not very good planning in my opinion.

 

[Amnak]

I wonder if I can snag the 15$ plan if they haven't gotten ride of it and grandfather in.

 

[goinskiing]

Still waiting for the hot-spot pricing.